1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems for parking automobiles, and more particularly to an automatic or semi-automatic system that is faster than prior art systems which are generally too slow to meet modern requirements for large scale parking and return of automobiles. The invention is in the general field of material or article handling (class 214) which includes storehouses for wheeled vehicles (subclass 016-1).
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art teaches the use of multi-level storge structures and specific mechanisms for storage of automobiles therein. A representative patent in the prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 3,499,553 to Karl Heinz Stienen which has some of the elements of the instant invention, but it is deficient in some of the requirements for a storage system, which make it not adequate for a practical modern parking facility. The prior art does not, in general, consider the greatest problem in storage and retrieval of automobiles on a commercial basis such as would be involved in the parking of vehicles by shoppers in a crowded and hurried invironment in a shopping center where, on the average, storage or retrieval times of more than a few minutes would not be tolerable. Also, the requirement for automatic substitution of equipment to obviate problems of down-time due to equipment failure, to avoid catastrophic traffic jams, is of utmost importance. In general, none of the prior art patents describe a system which has the characteristics of speed, fault tolerance and low energy consumption required for a modern practical system. In prior art systems a ferris-wheel arrangement of stalls is often used or a gantry having an elevator therein is moved to store and retrieve vehicles from a pidgeon-hole structure. These arrangements are impractical because of their high energy consumption in moving large masses and their susceptibility to structural breakdown.
The prior art does, in general, consider the compactness and efficient utilization of storage space which is a salient feature of the instant invention, but does not define the optimum practical structural configuration to be used in order to maximize the speed of operation of the system so that it can be functional within commercial time constraints and minimize mechanical failures. In the preferred embodiments of the instant invention, consideration was given to the optimum configuration and a modular structure was chosen together with dynamic elements that move a single automobile at a time, obviating the problems of large mass movement.
Another area in which the prior art is lacking is in the practical implementation of a reliable control system having sensors for real-time display of the status of the total system and electrical ladder displays for indicating what events in the storage-retrieval cycle have been completed, so that corrective overrides can be entered at an interactive terminal by a supervisor.